The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club

Product Information

The swimming represents so much and is a delightful focus and novelty in this beautiful novel…. Although swimming in Ireland in January?! Whew! However, I love swimming and I’ve experienced the same good feeling once in a very cold lake in Switzerland and it was amazing, exhilarating, and unforgettable. Now, I can barely handle California ocean swims and yearn for the warm east coast waters and summer vacations of my youth.

This time, I’m delighted to introduce you to three women who may not have made all the right decisions in life, but bouyed up by each other and a mad notion to take on the nearby water by moonlight find that the solution to their worries is perhaps much closer to hand than they at first believed. When Elizabeth's husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, she must turn to her friend, Jo for help, who calls in her daughter, Lucy to run the village surgery. Leaving her city life, and past demons, behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start. Jo is an older lady who has lived in the tiny Irish village of Ballycove all her life. She is alone and looking frail but she is the heart of the community and always offering to help others, including Elizabeth as she has a suggestion. Her daughter Lucy is a doctor. These three women form The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club where they can swim away their troubles in the freezing cold waters of the Irish sea. It is a place they can be alone, gather their thoughts, talk, laugh, and listen. Her latest novel is The Guest House By The Sea - set in the west of Ireland - this is a book to fall in love with.

Member Reviews

The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club was founded by Jo, who coerced her daughter and friend to join her. They all have their own problems but their midnight swims help them connect, talk, laugh and be inspired. . . . . This is a story which focuses on these three ladies, Lucy’s son and a writer who has come to stay in the village whilst he writes a novel and searches for his past.

All the characters are going through, and have gone through, immense change in their lives, and have a lot to deal with. There’s a very strong sense of community and friendship in this book. She gained an Honours Degree in English Literature and Psychology from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate Degree from University College, Galway. To be honest, I think we were all a little in awe of your extensive vocabulary when it came to telling her where to go. The parish priest had to run into the pantry to hide his smirk. Author Dan decides to leave Dublin and take time out to write a novel, and to investigate a question he’s wondered about most of his life. QandA with Louise Davidson author of #TheFortunesOfOliviaRichmond | @LouiseDWriter | @moonflowerbooksI loved these women, they are lovely, funny, inspiring and brave. At the end I wanted to sign up for their club and to hug them. Jo, a close friend of Elizabeth’s, persuades her divorced daughter and coincidentally a doctor to takeover the surgery until Elizabeth can move forward. Lucy’s son Niall accompanies her into what he views as a fresh new hell. He’s busting to join his father in Australia, Lovely story of female friendship and small community living on the west coast of Ireland, where the water is clean, hence the joys of midnight dips in the sea. Focussing on Lucy escaping pressures of working in A&E in Dublin, Elizabeth who's husband's death left secrets and problems and Jo delighted to have her daughter and grandchild around. With subplots of the impact of having children when not married and how it is for women, when men have married them, to hide their homosexuality. Wonderfully told.

I just adore Faith Hogan’s books, and she’s one of my top go-to authors for a guaranteed beautiful, atmospheric, and authentic read. A tight knit story, with occasional lapses where some happenings are maybe a tad too fortuitous. But then this is a novel of hope and stretching oneself, so again, Why Not? MY THOUGHTS: Why have I never read anything by this author before? Her characters are stunning. They made themselves at home in my heart and I don't want to say goodbye to them.

Of course, the cover reveal is, in many ways, just another step on the journey to publication. You know the way they say it takes a village to raise a child – well, books are a little like that! She lives in the west of Ireland with her husband, four children and a very busy Labrador named Penny. She's a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger - except of course when it is raining! THE AUTHOR: Faith Hogan is an Irish award-winning and bestselling author. She was born in Ireland. She gained an Honours Degree in English Literature and Psychology from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate Degree from University College, Galway. Although it was emptied over a quarter of a century ago, there was no denying its looming presence; there was an eerie feeling of ghosts who would never fully rest. Jo, Elizabeth and Lucy have different ages and different living experiences but now that they are together in the same place they have the chance to understand and to help each other.